Citizen of the YearIn the Loretto, TN Phone bookExcerpted from the Lawrence County Advocate

Roy and Gert 50th Wedding Anniversary

He drove Model T cars from Louisville to Loretto and a crank-start truck along an unpaved Highway 43. He remembers oxen-powered sawmills and the train that ran from West Point to Collinwood. Roy Matthews, 90, has never lived outside south Lawrence County, but his memories are as rich and varied as a world traveler’s. Matthews recalls only an instant with his mother, who passed away when he was very young. His father “broke up housekeeping” while three of his 13 children were still at home, and Matthews went to live with the Bromley family of Iron City on one of the largest farms in the county. “They didn’t adopt me, but I was just like part of the family,” he said. With the Bromley’s he spent his adolescence farming and was never part of his own family’s sawmilling business.“My daddy was a saw miller,” he said, with a mill located near Loretto. “The older ones in his family had all been in the business.”

Matthews rode the train from Iron City to West Point to visit his father occasionally, and says passenger train service wasn’t unusual at all for a town of West Point’s size.It – and Iron City as well – had diminished since their iron ore boom days, but West Point still has its own bank.

Other memories are just as clear, including that of Loretto’s first doctor, his Uncle Jim Matthews.“He had lost a leg at Gettysburg; and back in those days, all they could do was use a wooden stick to replace it.They called him Dr. Peg.”

From his first job with the state highway department in 1924, he was in and around vehicles and roads for the majority of his working days.

“My first job was driving a truck.It was an old solid tire truck – no top, no cab, no windshield, no battery, you had to crank it to get it started.We worked in all kinds of weather, but you were lucky to get a job then.You were glad to have it even if it was raining.”Most of his work then was on the highway connecting Lawrenceburg and Loretto, a chert road now called ‘the old highway.’

In his late 20’s Matthews worked for the Loretto Motor Company and drove new Model T’s here from Louisville, KY. The Model T was a very basic, he said and many improvements continued to amaze people.In 1936, Matthews went back to work for the state highway department, this time as an ‘outdoor mechanic.’“I worked in Lawrence, Wayne and Perry counties.Anytime anything quit in those counties they’d call me and I’d go fix it.I was an outside mechanic – there was another one who got to work inside.”

Matthews later worked for the county garage and drove Loretto workers to and from Lawrenceburg’s shirt factory, too.He was also a business owner for a time, running Loretto’s “Electric Appliance Company.”

In 1962, Matthews began working more closely with his friend, then Commissioner of Safety, Greg O”Rear, when he became a Superintendent for the Highway Department over work in Wayne, Lawrence and Giles counties.

Matthews and his wife Gertrude Zettler had five children and were active members of Loretto Sacred Heart.Even so, he found time to belong to Knights of Columbus organizations in both Lawrenceburg and Loretto, the Loretto Volunteer Fire Department and the Loretto Lions Club.He enjoyed bowling and fishing, gardening and serving as manager of Loretto’s community baseball team.He served as Loretto’s Mayor and and one-half terms beginning in 1958.

Matthews is still an avid baseball fan.He received 90th birthday cards from President Clinton and Vice President Gore, but was even more proud of the one he got from Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner.

Today Matthews liven in his house he shared with his wife of 62 years, a house he says is “about as old as I am” and was built by Loretto’s first banker.He enjoys 16 grandchildren, 22 great grandchildren and six step great grandchildren.

He also enjoys his hometown, which has been his home most of his 90 years.He responds with pleasure to its praise, and hooks his fingers behind his coat lapels, smiling broadly.“There’s good people down there, too.”been his home most of his 90 years. He responds with pleasure to its praise, and hooks his fingers behind his coat lapels, smiling broadly. “There’s good people down there, too.”